Black Archives of Kansas City

The Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City is very excited and proud of our accomplishments over the past year. We have seen our visitor numbers increase significantly, with more young people visiting our museum. Our programs for older adults have increased with the Eggs and Enlightenment Group meeting every Friday at the Black Archives; Our community outreach has increased. We have gone to senior care centers with our "Picture Parties" taking photos from our collection and having the residents identify the people in the pictures. Our collections have grown, and we are preserving the history and culture of people of African descent more efficiently with digitization. We are proud of our programs for young people. Our annual Stop the Violence Basketball tournament has a farther reach than before. Young men came from St. Louis, Columbia, Texas, Kansas City, MO, Kansas City, KS, Lawrence, KS, St. Joseph, MO and other sites. It was wonderful to hear them say, "Next year we're going to beat you,", and other "wolf tickets" confirming that the event was a success, the young men had a day of peace, and they valued the tournament. We also were pleased with some of our other Youth Empowerment events like the "fashion show," which was much more than that. Young people who are interested in the fashion industry came, learned about fashion merchandising, design and how to walk the catwalk at the fashion show. We appealed to those with artistic talents as they helped us to create and design study guides for middle to high schoolers and performed historical re-enactments. This year marked the 50th Anniversary of the Black Archives. Our gala was packed to capacity. Michael Harrington appealed to participants of all ages. We were excited to see that the Black Archives survived 50 tumultuous years, is thriving and still growing.